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Short Shorts - Part One
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| Life Story | Short Shorts #1 -- These are some short quips of things I have heard from a variety of different persons in the gender community. Some are humorous, some warm, some sad. Hopefully these will generate some contemplation on the part of the reader of what it means to be transgendered. The pronoun "I" used below is not necessarily Amanda speaking, but one of the many persons who related these thoughts to me. | ||||||||
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Copyright 1996. Amanda Lynn Richards, All rights reserved.
GOT NOTICED - LEARNED SOMETHING: On Huron St., a half-block off Michigan Avenue on a windy summer day, wearing a long dress with front buttons opened to about 3 inches above the knee, the skirt was blown up exposing my legs. The taxi drivers standing around across the street took quick notice and let out some wolf whistles and comments. I was flattered. Then later I thought of what a woman has to go through when men make crude remarks or gestures.
BEAUTY: Some sisters tell of this woman in her 80's in NY who has helped so many men with their womanly image. The feeling of absolute joy and beauty they have when she fits them with proper padding and corset to display the hour-glass form of a woman, and follows that with makeup and hairdo. She follows that by wrapping the subject in a long white cloth, accenting the feminine form. As she holds it in place she turns him towards the mirror. Some have said they actually cried at the beautiful portrayal she creates.
I DON'T UNDERSTAND: A wig shop in Chicago has a yellow pages ad with the statement, "TV's welcome" in small print. One day an elderly person showed up with a wagon. Inside the wagon was her television set that needed repair.
ARRESTED: The sales clerk in a department store smiled and gave him permission to try on the dress in the dressing room. She then alerted security who banged on the door demanding him to come out. They took his identification and loudly read out his name for all customers in the department to hear. He sued and after a year, settled for $1,000 in damages for his mistreatment.
BALLERINA: I'm at the Joeffrey Ballet in the Auditorium Theater. As I watch the ballerina, her feminine movements, grace and beauty overtake me. I experience a warm inner feeling that I too have feminine beauty, not only when I am cross dressed, but at other times too. Later, I dream of how it must feel to be so beautiful and graceful.
HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW, HERE IT IS AGAIN. I buy an outfit, wig, makeup, shoes, jewelry, perfume a scarf. I spend a few hundred dollars getting dressed. I feel beautiful. Then a feeling of guilt comes over me. Why am I doing this? I must be crazy. I will never do it again, I promise. It's so awful and degrading of myself. I throw out all these nice things in a full purge. Two months later, I need to dress again. The cycle of pleasure and pain begins again.
NO CURE: There is no cure for crossdressing. Maybe that's because it is not a disease, but a simple expression of one's whole person.
HOMELESS: Today I saw a homeless man on Michigan Avenue in front of the Tribune Tower. Old, dirty, a bag in each hand. He wore a beautiful plaid pleated skirt. Everything else he wore was ragged and dirty. It was winter. Did he want to be warm and not care about which gender he portrayed? I was afraid to ask. Too bad, I missed learning something.
CHRISTMAS PRESENT: He was open and honest with his son and daughter. The Christmas after he let his son know, the son gave him a beautiful blouse as a present. The card read that it didn't matter what gender his father was, he just wanted him to be happy and would always love him.
SECURITY: Several times the local support group has had discussions on security and what to do if an occasion rises where they are confronted. Best advice was to think ahead and avoid possible risks. We learned what women face on a daily basis. When dressed and out in public, I now watch myself more carefully than ever.
SHOPPING: I love to shop. Express, Limited, Marshall Fields, Lord & Taylor. I'm in my glory as I waltz through various departments looking at things, holding them up to the mirror and maybe even trying on a thing or two.
SPREE: I spend several hundreds of dollars on a shopping spree that takes me to several different stores. I buy only one or two things in each store. I then take them home to try on. It gives me the security of not worrying about being caught in a womens dressing room. I can also take my time at home to see what I want to keep. I return most of what I buy so that I stay within budget.
DILEMMA: Where do I find size 15 ladies shoes?
WASTED TIME: I've been doing this for most of my life. I never knew that there were others like me. I always thought I was the only one and hid this trait for over 30 years. I was too shameful to let anyone know. Now I find that there are thousands of others like me. Why did I wait so long to seek out other transgenders?
STILL MACHO: Some crossdressers are just men in dresses. Nothing changes except the outer wear. No sign of femininity. Too bad.
DESIRED AFFECTION: I always felt left out when I realized my father always hugged and kissed his girls, but not his boys. I wanted to be a girl so I could be hugged and kissed by him.
GIRLS KISS: Two transgendered men who are close friends went out together both dressed up as women. At the end of a fun evening they talked about the affection that girls can easily show to each other. They wondered about giving each other a short good-bye kiss and agreed to try it. It was sweet and warm. Two more kisses followed. In the following days they pondered their feelings. They concluded that it was simply a warm human thing to do, nothing to do with sexuality. In the USA men don't kiss. They do in Europe and elsewhere. It was a true sign of affection between two human beings.
WIFE'S KISS: I was dressing up one morning in my ladies clothes and my wife came in the room. She looked me over and then gave me a hug and a kiss. I was in heaven for days.
CLOSED MIND: My wife doesn't want to hear a thing about it. She will not talk to me about it at all. I have rented a small house in the country where I keep my girl things and go to for a retreat. It is lonely, but at least I can feel feminine.
LONG TERM WOMAN: I tried living as a woman for 6 months. At first it was great. Then came the realities of providing for myself, making a living, paying the bills, facing job discrimination. It was not easy and I found I could not do it full time.
MUTUAL FEELINGS: Several crossdressers were at a bar in Los Angeles. A real girl approached with curiosity. Conversation was started and it led to this exchange: (GG=genuine girl, CD=crossdresser)
GG: But how do you do the breasts?
CD: Their the commonly available forms that many women use, silicone filled.
GG: May I touch them?
CD: Only if I can touch your's too.
GG: Ok. (Touches) Oh, they feel so real!
CD: So do yours.
NOT FAR ENOUGH: Transexual to CD: "Oh, you're only a crossdresser." CD's thought: I'm happy the way I am, and don't need surgery. Why am I considered lesser. I respect her surgical change, why doesn't she respect me at the point I decided was best for me.
SAVED: She slept out in the woods hoping to die in the cold. Yet she survived. She saw the dew form a drop off the edge of a flower. It was then that she realized the beauty of God's creation and decided it was OK to be transsexual. She began her journey toward the surgery she felt would make her a whole person, a real woman.
WRONG STEREOTYPE: Contrary to popular opinion that crossdressers are gay, 80% are definitely heterosexual and a high percentage are fathers.
SHE NEVER LEARNED ABOUT THIS: My wife is a psychologist, and when I told her about my crossdressing she was appalled. She abhorred the idea and was vehement. Didn't they teach her anything about this in school? Why won't she help me?
COUNSELING: Often the transgendered goes for counseling, but finds that the psychologist does not know much about the subject. Some support groups have it on their agenda to help provide the education and information that the clinical community needs to help those who seek counseling.
OPPOSITE OF OTHER 'HABITS': For smoking, drinking, drugs it's abstinence that is the sought after result. For cross dressing indulgence and allowing one to feel good about it is the best remedy.
DARING FOR THIS GIRL: At a transgendered convention in a mid western rural city: A person with class performs in talent show in her French maid outfit. The act is humorous and she deserves the applause and good feelings she gets. When the show is over, most of the audience goes from the private banquet room where the show was held to the public lounge of the hotel. She decides she's feeling so good about this night, that she will go to the lounge in her outfit. Some look at her, but she doesn't care, she feels so good. If they don't like it, it's their problem.
HIGHWAY HELPER: It's late on a wintry Saturday night. In fact it's 27 below zero. We're crossdressed and we pull into a toll plaza automatic lane. In the next lane to our left there are some older women in a van. It's obvious that they have been waiting for some time for the gate to go up. Being a daily tollway rider, I know the ropes so I roll down my window. I momentarily forget I'm dressed like a lady and, so that she can gain the attention of the attendant in the manual lanes, I shout to her in full male voice, "Honk your horn!".. I receive the oddest most surprised stares I ever had. My friend and I howl with laughter for the next four miles as I realized why they looked at me so strangely.
CURIOUS: Two girls follow me from the parking lot into the mall. They must have read me. I go into Express and they watch as I go through the racks. Then they leave. I'll never know what they were really thinking.
NOT ME: We watch the movie "Wigstock". It's about a drag queen festival in New York. We don't like what we see. Some demean womanhood with extravagant makeup and outfits that are outrageous. Some look OK. The movie tells me where I am at. How do I respect where they are at, even though I think some of it's disgusting?
COSTUME PARTY: At my first meeting there was a drag queen dressed in flowing red robes of a queen but with all kinds of glitter makeup and very tall hair. Elegant. Her mannerisms are very masculine however.
WIFE'S INADEQUATE FEELING: She tells me how bad she feels because she just can't bring herself to participate with my cross dressing in public, although she is OK with it at home. I tell her, I am so lucky to have her talk to me about it and allow me to grow in that area. I remind her of a few times we hugged and kissed at home while I was crossdressed. I am indeed very lucky to have her level of acceptance.
CORPORATE NON-DISCRIMINATION POLICY: I see my boss interview a transsexual who is very good in a technical field that the company has great need of. The company has a non-discriminatory diversity hiring policy. My boss and his macho cronies can only laugh at and ridicule the candidate after a series of interviews that lasted all day. They all admitted she was super technically, yet would not fit in...because of her transsexualism and their machoism.
DIVERSITY POLICY: I'm shopping at Marshall Fields (a plush department store on State Street in Chicago) in the evening gowns department. I'm trying to determine if a gown will fit me by measuring across the bust with a string. I find the string to stretch too much to be accurate. I ask the clerk if she has a tape measure. She answers "no" and begins to joke about me buying the gown for myself. I reply that she found out my secret, but I know that she probably wouldn't have let me try it on. She says "Oh no, we would like a good laugh." Catching herself, she backs off and in a customer service tone of voice tells me that I would be welcome to try it. Later I read the diversity statement on the side of the shopping bag. Thank you Marshall Fields.
CANDLE CEREMONY: A candlelight vigil is held for transsexuals who committed suicide due to the tremendous pressures they could no longer endure. The participants sit in a circle and meditate and pray. It ends in silence and darkness as each candle is extinguished one by one as the name of each remembered is recited.
ENCOURAGEMENT AND A MEMORY: I am encouraged by a sister's remark, a sister I had just met two days earlier. She enjoyed my en-femme performance of several songs from the 60's and 70's. She stops to compliment me and says, "You should make an album." The remark enkindles the desire to do just that, for the purpose of helping the community lighten up and have a little fun. Ten months later, I released an album called "Go Lite on the Dressin'. A few months later I find out she passed away after a long battle with AIDS. Her friends say she never gave up helping others or giving out encouragement. Sadly, she never got to hear the album. I cried a few tears over that, and prayed for her and her family.
POOR IMAGE: Some crossdressers just can't get it together. They wear the wrong styles or skirts that are too short. They don't take the time to pad themselves correctly. Makeup is too heavy, wrong color or smeared. Some just don't have anyone to help them. It's not easy learning how to really portray a woman.
QUICK DRY: I hate waiting for my nails to dry. Just when I think it's OK, I'll touch something and then they're dented or scratched.
HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH: Some crossdressers boast having as many as 600 outfits. Others hide one in a cardboard box, hoping no one will ever find out about it.
SHE WAS SURPRISED, SO WAS HE: I have all my girl things hidden in a couple boxes in the basement. My wife was looking for something when she accidentally opened them up. She thought I had a girl friend and was very upset. When she heard I was cross dressing she was relieved and wanted to know more. Now we go out together as two ladies.
IT'S NOT FOR US: My wife and I went out together as two ladies. We both felt a distance between us. We like to hold hands when we walk, but wouldn't dare. It was a cool night and I couldn't put my arms around her to warm her. We both learned that being in public with me dressed as a woman was not for us. It is OK in private though.
REPEATED BY MANY: When I crossdress I feel so beautiful and whole. It's really me.
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